


In Restless Dreams

by Beleriandings



Series: Tales of Lake Mithrim [9]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Brothers, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2501603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his rescue from Thangorodrim, Maedhros dreams, but Maglor does not sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Restless Dreams

On the days when Macalaurë sat alone at his brother’s bedside, he held his hand, and thought about what he would say to him when he woke.

(Better that than consider the possibility that Maitimo would not wake.)

The king regent ran his thumbs over the scarred, pitted skin of the ball of Maitimo’s thumb, feeling the joints of his one remaining hand move like the spindly bones of a bird beneath the skin, but misshapen and twisted, broken and healed many times over. 

The words he had practiced like the lines of a play, the words he knew he would have to say slipped through his head, tugging like thorns in the flesh as he watched Maitimo’s eyes move beneath his lids.

_Does he dream?_

Macalaurë hoped for Maitimo’s sake that he did not.

And yet, he sometimes thought in the black of the night when he had been gently but firmly propelled out of Maitimo’s sickroom by the ever-solicitous Findekáno, ( _and when had their laughing bright cousin grown cold and hard as steel?_  Macalaurë wondered.  _On the Ice_ , he answered himself) he would be afraid, coward that he was, to face Maitimo when he did wake. 

What might he say?

_I thought you were dead._

The words slipped through his mind, coming easily, a lie he had told himself so often that he had almost believed it himself. 

That was a lie too.

He had never believed Maitimo was dead, not really. That would be too much of a mercy. 

And so he held Maitimo’s hand as his brother wandered in fever, moving aside dutifully for the healers, raising his head high under Findekáno’s disapproving, frosty glare that softened to something like affection only when he looked at Maitimo. He bore the stares, the whispers as he entered the camp of his uncle’s host, drowned them out by whispering louder to himself, inside his head. 

 _Forgive me brother. I thought you were dead._  

It made it no better; he knew that of course. He had said the words to himself so many times now they had almost lost their meaning, becoming a trail of disconnected sounds that rattled through his mind. 

When the time came, still he did not speak them, could not bring himself to. 

Maitimo woke slowly, his mind and memories returning over many months, as if his  _fëa_  were coming back in pieces.

It was night when the words finally passed between them. 

Maitimo slept, and Macalaurë dozed in the chair by his bedside, the fire burning low in the grate. Suddenly there was a ragged sob, and Macalaurë was jolting awake to see Maitimo struggling with the covers of the bed, clawing at the furs and crying out.

"Nelyo!" Macalaurë held out his hands warily as Maitimo’s wild eyes, white with panic, roamed over the room and settled on him. "Nelyo, what is it?"

"You’re…" Maitimo held out his hand to Macalaurë, who took it, squeezing it in his own. "I dreamed you… I thought you were dead, Káno."

Macalaurë swallowed painfully. _I thought you were dead._  “I’m right here” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “A dream. I’m here, and so are you, and we’re both safe. See, Nelyo?” Slowly, he smoothed back the hair that had fallen across Maitimo’s face. To his relief, Maitimo barely flinched at all under his touch. 

"Yes" said Maitimo thoughtfully, staring at him intently. "Macalaurë, I dreamed that it was you… taken. By him, I mean." His eyes filled with fear for a moment.

"Ssh. Just a dream" murmured Macalaurë. "It’s not real. It’s not true." 

Maitimo kept his gaze on Macalaurë, not to be dissuaded, taking his hand away and tugging fretfully at the bandaged on the stump of his right wrist. “I was king, in the dream. You were gone, and it was up to me to choose…” Maitimo’s eyes filled with tears. “You couldn’t have known, but I did. I knew you were not dead. I knew what he’d be doing to you, I remembered it… I… I…” Maitimo’s eyes were filling with tears, and he wrenched his gaze away from Macalaurë’s, pallid cheeks flushing blotchy red. “I knew… and yet I did nothing. I left you there, Macalaurë.” When he looked up, his eyes were beseeching, hollow and desolate, terrible to look upon. “Left you to… torment. But not to die, never to die, even though I told myself you were dead already. Is that how it was for you?” 

Macalaurë did not know how to answer. “Yes” he blurted out at last, taking even himself by surprise.  _No more lies._  Suddenly the tears were coming, hot and stinging, blurring his vision. “Oh, Nelyo, forgive me. I knew. I told myself I thought you were dead, but really, somewhere in my heart I knew.” He took a breath, giving Maitimo a measured look. 

"Before I left" said Maitimo quietly. "I… yes, I remember now, I asked you not to come looking for me, should anything happen…" he caught sight of Macalaurë’s face. "That oath was the cruellest punishment I could have inflicted on you, wasn’t it?"

For a moment, Macalaurë found himself lost for words.

"Káno?" Maitimo’s voice was more vulnerable and broken than it had sounded in many weeks since he had woken. "Say something, little brother?"

"Oh, Nelyo. It was a dream. Nothing more."  _Would that I could say the same of your time in Angband._  There the guilt was again, ever-present. He did not feel capable of saying any more. Instead he pulled his brother ( _still too thin and frail_ ) into his arms, holding him against his chest and sobbing into his ragged tufts of red hair, even as he listened to the sound of the beat of his brother’s life beneath his skin, his breathing, feeling the reassuring warmth of him. After a moment, Maitimo slowly brought his own arms up to embrace Macalaurë.

 _Frail and weak and scarred, yet so alive_ , thought Macalaurë. I can hold him in my arms, feel his heartbeat, as we did when we curled together to sleep when we were children.  _Alive. No more lies._  And for that moment, that was the only thing that mattered. 


End file.
